I’m glad to work at GayRVA, where supporting and respecting members of the LGBTQ community is always our first priority. It’s a shame that not every publication feels the same way. For example, a small weekly newspaper in Texas showed profound disrespect recently to a gay man who was grieving over the loss of his mother.

The paper, the Olton Enterprise, received an obituary for local resident Brenda Light, who had recently passed away. Among the list of who Light was survived by was listed “her son, Barry Giles, and his husband, John Gambill of Dallas.” However, when the obituary was published, Gambill’s name was not included.

“It wiped John completely off the picture like he didn’t exist,” Giles told Fox 4 News of Dallas-Fort Worth, TX. Gambill called the newspaper to find out why he’d been left out. “I said, ‘Why was my name left out?’ And he said, ‘Because I wanted to.’ And that’s all there was to the conversation,” Gambill told Fox 4 News.

Of course, there was more to the story, and it was uncovered when Fox 4 reached out to the paper directly for comment. The Olton Enterprise’s publisher, Philip Hamilton, who is also a Baptist minister, sent a statement to the station. It read in part, “It is my religious conviction that a male cannot have a husband. It is also my belief that to publish anything contrary to God’s Word on this issue would be to publish something in the newspaper that is not true.”

Hamilton continued, “The newspaper’s decision to edit the obituary is both ethical and lawful. It would be unethical to publish a news item that is known by the editor to be false. Based on the truth found in the Word of God, I could not in good conscience identify Mr Gambill as the husband of Mr Giles.”

Giles and Gambill, who have been together for over three decades, were married after marriage equality was made the law of the land in 2015. Since 2010, Light had lived in the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff, less than a mile from Giles and Gambill’s home. Gambill did chores around her house for her in her last years, including scooping her cat’s litterbox — so it’s not like he was a stranger to Light. “We spent holidays together,” Gambill told the Dallas Voice. “We did what a family would do.”

Of course, all this is taking place in Texas, where equal treatment of same-sex marriages has never been guaranteed. Indeed, in 2017, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the legality of same-sex marriages did not guarantee the same sort of spousal benefits to those in such marriages as it did to those in heterosexual marriages. As of right now, this is the precedent still in effect in Texas.

Apparently, another right same-sex married couples are not guaranteed in Texas is dignity and respect during difficult times of loss.

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